Why Staying Consistent Feels Hard AF When Starting New Things

You know the weird time period after you get home from vacation, or when you’ve been out of your home environment just long enough to miss it?

As humans, we naturally start trust falling back into that environment with the behaviors we know support it. Some make sure to clean their home so when they return, they don’t have to rush back into “the day to day”. I’d totally recommend that.

You naturally gravitate toward the side of the couch you usually find yourself in, or in the kitchen where you usually spend a lot of time in.

This description is where the habits we form are created. It’s such a fast decision that a lot of times is unconscious — it’s natural, instinctual, and often automatic.

Many can name exactly what habits and patterns aren't working in their lives. We are creatures who naturally want to improve upon our environments, so we are wired to find problems to "solve".

The problem I see often for people, and myself, is keeping habits in line with our true north. Walking even on cold days, emptying the dishwasher when it’s clean (in the same day), filling up the car with gas even though we know we’ve got 30 miles left.

We know not doing these things creates this feeling of always having something to do, yet the habit of not doing it creates micro pain points. Some people find it easy to call in the “why we do what we do”, and for others, it’s far away because the feeling hasn’t fully been acknowledged.

“I know I should”

and

“I don’t want to”

They absolutely have to create a full internally driven sentence for any new habit to foundationally form.

“I don’t want to go to the gym today, but I know why I chose to form this habit”

No back-and-forth indecision. Feeling and fact together.

The Part Nobody Talks About: Your System Likes What It Knows

Much of what we do each day runs on automatic patterns. These are behaviors the nervous system has repeated enough times that they fire quickly and with very little effort.

If something has helped you:

• reduce stress

• avoid conflict

• regain a sense of control

• or simply move through the day faster

…your system notes it as useful.

So, when you try to change, you are not starting from zero.

You are interrupting something that has been reinforced, sometimes for years.

One of the phrases that has helped me when I realize my why when the change feels scary is:

“It got me here, and I am thankful, but it cannot come with me on my next journey.”

What’s next is changing the way you show up knowing that you’ve been undermining yourself in a way. It’s not as easy as you would think. Your body has learned to find comfort in these habits, even when they no longer serve you. However, with new insight and direction comes the possibility of different outcomes that serve you in a new and better way. It's important to focus on the future while clearing out the present pattern that's in-between. I want to note here that this isn't a pass or fail moment like it might have felt when reading that.

Patterns Rarely Stay in One Area of Life

If you receive my weekly Shift Newsletters, you’ve read where the Law of Correspondence plays a part in how habits and patterns form. They travel from area to area in our lives but may appear differently.

The way you manage pressure at work often ripples into your home.

The jam-packed calendar often mirrors the pace in your body.

Avoidance, over-responsibility, hyper-responsiveness (just to name a few common pain points) all learned by being in certain environments. These strategies rarely stay separated to one area of life, so if you focus on forming new habits in one block of life, you may find how it benefits you in other parts as well. It's like a delightful bonus and are the signals that you are doing the damn thing.

The Real Reframe: The Struggle to Maintain Is Normal

When you step back and look at the full picture with automatic patterns, reinforcement history, cognitive load, accumulated stress all connected, they explain a very normal human experience.

We grow through tension, and the tension felt in life is often beneficial in some way in the end. We gain insight, we see different perspectives, we gain wisdom.

You are human, operating with a nervous system and brain that are doing their best to balance efficiency, safety, and energy. When you begin to see your reactions and habits through that lens, what once looked like self-sabotage often reveals itself as learned protection.

And from there, change becomes much more meetable.

A Steadier Way Forward

If staying consistent has felt harder than you expected, take this as permission to normalize the struggle without living in the struggle.

Everyone resists change in some capacity, even welcomed change.

With the right pacing for you, awareness, and structural support that’s right for you, patterns and habits do begin to shift.

It’s not something to force. Forcing a horse to drink isn’t a thing, but guiding the horse to fresh water is.

You are your own guide through steady, supported repetition that your system can finally trust enough to keep.

And that is where real change tends to take root.

If this was helpful, consider signing up to the newsletter The Weekly Shift, where we dive deep into the mechanics of behavior, patterns, the brain, and how they all work together. You can find The Conscious Shift Podcast on all your favorites streaming platforms.

Stay Steady - The Conscious Shift Team